Ashok Sinha, a businessman who lives in Mango’s Dimna Road area, went for festive shopping to Bistupur market on Monday with his family for the second time in one week. But this time, Sinha hired an auto and kept the family car at home. Reason: the last time he came to Bistupur market, he couldn’t find a place to park his car nearby.

Sinha said he was happy that he was wiser. “A couple of days back, when I got my car, I found no space along Bistupur Main Road nor the parking bay on L Road-end. Before Puja, the rush is tremendous at Bistupur and finding parking space a huge hassle,” he said. “That’s why I decided to just hire an auto-rickshaw. I’m willing to compromise on comfort but won’t tolerate the parking headache.”

Like Sinha, thousands of car owners face troubles in parking their four-wheeler at any designated bay or at any other spot within walking distance from Bistupur market before Pujas.

Jamshedpur has 1 lakh four-wheelers, 6 lakh two-wheelers, over 20,000 auto-rickshaws and around 500 buses, but Bistupur, one of the posh areas of the steel city, simply lacks enough parking lots to cope with the volume of vehicles.

There is a paid parking lot at the L Road-end close to Bistupur Main Road, but it can only accommodate 90 four-wheelers. There is no other parking space except along Bistupur Main Road, which stays choc-a-bloc. As a result, people have to park on branching streets M Road, L Road and N Road, all residential areas.

Jusco, a subsidiary of Tata Steel, has set up and maintains parking bays in the steel city’s company command areas. But space crunch in Bistupur — which has one of the costliest real estate in Jharkhand — prevents the utility company from setting up more parking lots.

A Jusco official said they “sincerely” wanted to sort out the parking problem in Bistupur, but there was hardly any vacant space to build another bay like the one on L Road behind Bank of Baroda.

“We have widened roads but could not set up more parking lot due to the absence of vacant land,” he said.